Bear Down Baffa

Unlike Detroit, it’s been a rough go for Minnesota lately.  The Twinkies went from 94 wins to 99 losses, the Wild haven’t made the playoffs in 4 years, and the T-wolves haven’t finished above .300 since ’06.  And since upgrading from Tarvaris “How Did This Team Start Me With a Straight Face” Jackson to Bret “Have You Seen My Wenus” Favre (and missing the Super Bowl by one ill-advised pass two years ago), they’ve backslid to Donovan “I’m Doing More Damage to My Legacy At the End of My Career Than Bret ‘Have You Seen My Wenus’ Favre” McNabb.  Add in their state’s presidential candidate Michele Bachmann being almost as ridiculous as Sarah Palin, electing Al Franken to the Senate seems to be the only thing that state has going for it (other than Sarah Palin not being from there).  You betcha!

“Seven” Hester in all his ridiculousness

This was about as much of a must-win as we’ve had in a while, so I had to go down to Soldierz and check things out for myself.  Staring 4th place and a 4 game hurdle in the eyes, we dominated with our backs against the wall.  We’ve now beaten Minnesota 4 straight, and 10 of the last 11 in Chicago.  And with us winning 2 out of our last 3 (while scoring 86 points and getting back to .500), we just put ourselves back in the division (who are we kidding, the Wild Card) race.  We now have the chance to start 4-3, just like last year.  And at this stage, that’s good enough for me.

Domination begins with Bears urinating in Viking’s beer

The Best Offense is a Good Offense
Martz finally gave us a virtual 50-50 split on passing (31) and running (28) plays, and it seemed to work (imagine that).  Our O-Line rebounded as we ran for 119 yards with Forte going for 87 on 17 carries (5.1/run).  They also gave Cutler plenty of time to throw by allowing only 1 sack to a team tied for the league lead in sacks.  And he responded by starting 5 for 5 for 78 yards, including a 48-yard TD pass to Hester on our third play from scrimmage.  And he was 15 of 21 for 200 yards and 2 TD’s in the first half alone.

Hester scores first offensive TD of season on first drive

We scored 16 points in the first quarter and ran out to a 26-3 lead at the half, scoring TD’s on 3 of our first 5 drives and kicking 3 FG’s on our last 5.  Add in 2 special teams scores and that’s 8 scores on 10 drives.  The Butler finished 21-31 (67.7%) for 267 yards (8.6/attempt), 2 TD’s, no INT’s and a 116 QBR, which gives him twice as many TD’s (8) as INT’s (4) on the season.  He even managed to throw a cut block on former-mullet-wearing Jared Allen when Forte cut one back, recorded a tackle after he fumbled, and at one point yelled “Tell (Martz) I said fuck him!” from the field.  That’s a solid outing – even for Jim McMahon!

Cutler firing the pill – a la McMahon

Hester had 5 catches for 91 yards and his first offensive TD (though he did have another open-field dropped pass).  Roy “First Down” Williams had 3 for 50 (more than he’s had combined since week 1), and Forte led us with 6 catches (for 36 yards).  Sanzenbacher caught his team-leading third TD, and his 17 catches tie him for the team lead (with Hester) among receivers (Forte has 36).  In all a phenomenal performance, especially considering we don’t have a single Pro Bowl caliber offensive player right now.

Sanzenbacher splits the defense – and his satchel

Defense – We Fly on the Field and Get on Down
Defensively we made Minnesota look unprepared.  They started with two 3-and-outs and then got safetied on the second play of their third drive – giving them only 3 total yards at that point.  They kicked their lone FG on their fourth drive and scored their only TD after Cutler fumbled at the Bear 44 to start the second half, their lone start in Bear territory.  The reason Minnesota only punted 5 times was because they missed a FG, kicked off after a safety, and turned it over on downs twice in the 4th quarter.

Bears acting like white man, keeping Peterson down “all day”

Despite “All Day” Peterson scoring a TD, we held him to a mere 39 yards on 12 carries (a 3.3 average) after he averaged 100 yards in his first 5 games.  His longest run (which has of course been an issue for us recently) was only 8 yards.  This was even better than his last visit to Soliderz, when he had 51 on 17 (3/run).  We also held Minnesota to 53 overall rushing yards after they’ve averaged over 160 per game this year.  And we allowed our season lowest (by 100 yards!) of 286 total yards.

Even Peterson’s teammates helped the Bears tackle him

After last week’s weak safety play, we started 2 new safeties – last year’s third round pick Major Wright and this year’s third rounder Chris Conte.  Chris Harris, who was benched and inactive because he played like Hellen Keller last week, wants to take his ball and go home now, asking for a trade.  Lovie stood by his decision on the personnel changes after the game, as does our staff.

Harris pouts during perhaps his last Bears game – from sidelines

McNabb was benched in the 4th quarter, though he completed almost 80% of his passes (19-24), after being sacked 5 times.  Playing on a bad knee, Pepp had 2 of those sacks (his 20th multiple sack game, 2nd as a Bear), while rookie second round pick Stephen Paea had a safety in his first NFL game.  Peanut Tillman led us with 11 tackles and Conte had 6.

Paea smothers McNabb – like a priest on a soon-to-be victim

Special Teams
Seven Hester returned a kickoff 98 yards for his 18th all-time TD return (counting his missed FG return and his opening kickoff return in the Super Bowl) immediately after Minnesota scored their only TD of the game.  Former Bear and current Viking coach Leslie Frazier said of that play, “You feel like you’re getting ready to come, and that kickoff return was a big momentum turn.”  Apparently wenus action on that Viking sideline is not limited to Favre.

Paea gets in on the wenus celebrations with one of his own

It was Hester’s first game with both a receiving and return TD, and his first kickoff return in 59 games (since 11/25/07 against Denver).  And his return TD pose was right in front of me in the south end zone – I could have peed on him from my seat, and not just because I’d had 12 beers.  Gould was 4-4, hit one from 51 yards and had a total of 15 points, while former Packer Ryan Longwell missed one from 38 (after a 5-yard penalty moved them back).

Hester re-defining ridiculous – one play at a time

Overall
We averaged almost 2 yards more per play (6.3 vs. 4.5) than the Vikes on virtually the same number of plays (64 for Minni, 60 for us) as we evenly split time of possession.  And though we tied in completion percentage (67%), we threw for more yards on 11 fewer passes.  But this game was over 10 minutes in and the score (39-10) doesn’t accurately reflect how lopsided the game was.  Lovie said, “Hopefully that’s who were are, the team that you saw tonight.”  If it is, this game could be the turning point in our Super Bowl run.  If not, we’re looking at being 4 games back again next week after GB pummels Minnesota.

Apparently this guy wants a timeout so he can grab some food

On the Docket
We head to London to take on Tampa Bay at Wembley Stadium on Sunday before our bye week.  And since TB is the “home” team, we still get 8 games at Soldierz.  So we got that going for us, which is nice.

Bear fans getting early start on Super Bowl festivity training

Bear Up and Bear Down!

© 2011

This entry was posted on Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 6:26 pm and is filed under j) 2011 Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.